


Can't Nobody Love You

by fairwinds09



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: All That Skate, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Instagram comments being problematic, T getting defensive, Tour Fic, and T taking excellent care of him, as well as delicious brunch, now with a side helping of angst, really I just have a thing for Scott being a huge baby when he's sick, shameless amounts of tooth-rotting fluff, sick! Scott
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-16 00:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14801160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairwinds09/pseuds/fairwinds09
Summary: Scott comes down with the Head Cold of Death during their tour in South Korea. Fortunately, Tessa's there to look after him.It's a business partner thing.(As the tags say...shameless tooth-rotting fluff, based loosely on recent events.)





	1. need love to ease my mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fitslikeakey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitslikeakey/gifts), [justtotallyplatonic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justtotallyplatonic/gifts).



> Hello all! It's been...forever since I posted anything. _Mea culpa._ Things have been a little crazy lately. 
> 
> Luckily for me, I have a bit of downtime coming up, and I hope to be writing and posting some of the new projects I've been working on, as well as updating some of the older ones. (Yes, I _absolutely_ plan on finishing Hat Trick. I have it outlined and everything. Just trying to make sure it's as good as it can possibly be for when I'm ready to post.) 
> 
> This fic was inspired wholesale by Scott's poor miserable sick self during All That Skate last week. I was batting the idea of sick!Scott fic around with some of my mutuals on Twitter, and then the idea overtook me and I started writing, and...yeah, this thing mushroomed out of control fairly quickly. As per the usual. Also, I borrowed the title from the incomparable Solomon Burke's song of the same name. (If you haven't listened to it yet, go. Do it. Right now.)
> 
> Not sure how many chapters this is going to be at present...if the muse is feeling it, I might end up throwing in the Vogue shoot and cute zoo animals eventually. But for now, please enjoy sick Scott who just wants to cuddle with T, Jeff Buttle's unfortunate inability to read labels properly, and Tessa Virtue being absolutely incredible as always. 
> 
> Finally, this note would be incomplete without offering profound thanks to justtotallyplatonic and fitslikeakey for their tireless help, beta reading, and occasional gentle yelling. Without their assistance (and insistence), I would have gone to bed already and this probably would not have been posted. Y'all truly are the best.
> 
> As always...if you feel like it, drop me a line and tell me what you think. Thanks ever so much for reading!

He feels _awful_.

It really should not surprise him, by this point. He knows perfectly well that when he pushes this hard and gets this little sleep, he’s going to get sick. It’s a given. The last time he did this was PyeongChang, and it took a drawerful of vitamins from B2Ten and nearly a week of bed rest before he felt even marginally human again. Now, jet-lagged and beyond exhausted barely 48 hours after landing in Korea, he’s running on sheer willpower, and he’s not really sure how much longer he can hold out.

Tessa can tell, he knows. For one thing, by this point he can’t really breathe through his nose, so every time they skate together, he’s magically transformed into a mouth-breather who could rival the clichéd nerd character in every John Hughes film ever made. For another, he’s beginning to suspect that he might have slightly overdosed on the cough syrup immediately prior to the opening number, because he’s beginning to get this vaguely hazy feeling and the edges of the arena seem to be wobbling just a little.

He makes it through “Rock My World” just fine, even finds himself grinning like an idiot when he’s spinning with Tess in his arms; he can feel her smiling against his shoulder, and when she’s this happy it warms him deep in the marrow of his bones. As sick and as miserable as he currently is, he’d still do just about anything for that gloriously open smile.

“You okay?” she murmurs as they stroke off the ice together, hand in hand. He smiles at her broadly.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Just tired. Not feeling great. But I’m good to go for the rest of the show.”

She nods, but there’s a little crinkle between her eyebrows that says she’s worried. As soon as they get backstage, she curls up in one of the hideously uncomfortable folding chairs in a row against the back wall and pulls his head to her shoulder.

“Rest for a minute,” she murmurs, and he acquiesces, even though they should probably get up and get changed for the next number.

“How’s your head?” she asks after a moment, tilting her head so her cheek is resting against his hair.

“Pounding,” he answers truthfully. He hears her concerned little _hmm_ , feels the sound vibrate through the top of his aching skull.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, reaching for his hand. She intertwines their fingers, rubs her thumb over the top of his hand.

“It’s okay,” he mutters, even though it really isn’t. He wants nothing more than to curl up with his head on her lap and go to sleep, but that’s not really an option. Not for the first time, he wishes they’d been a bit more conservative when they planned out their tour schedule. He can hardly remember the last time he slept in his own bed. (Their bed, really...and God, how he misses curling up with Tessa in any of the three beds they occupy on a regular basis.)

“I’m worried about you,” she whispers, turning her head to press a kiss to his temple. “This is twice in three months you’ve been this bad. What if you get pneumonia or something?”

He picks his head up off her shoulder with a truly monumental effort.

“Tess,” he says, and coughs. Clearly the cough syrup is not kicking in fast enough. “I’m not going to get pneumonia. I’m fine.”

She purses her lips and gives him her best _I’m not buying your bullshit_ face.

“Uh-huh,” she says. “When we get back to the hotel tonight, I’m taking your temperature.”

Because he does not particularly want to get elbowed in the ribs, Scott refrains from pointing out that she sounds very much like a soccer mom, and instead does his damnedest to give her a reassuring smile.

“I’m fine, babe,” he says, and then before he can convince her that he’s not a candidate for the ER, the show organizer comes bustling up, insisting that they go get changed right this minute or they’ll be late for the next number, and that will never do.

By the time they get around to Moulin Rouge, he’s at least a little more alert, although he still feels like curling up on the nearest convenient chair and sleeping for a couple of millennia. Maybe longer.

“You good?” she whispers as they skate out in the darkness, and he shifts behind her for the opening position.

“Yeah,” he croaks, and she reaches for his hands, laces her fingers through his and rests their joined hands on her stomach. He leans in and presses a kiss to the curve of her neck, steels himself for the routine. No matter how horrible he feels, he can’t ever let her down, can’t ever give her a reason to not trust that she’s safe in his hands.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs as he hears the first notes ring out and she lets him go so his hands can slide up to her shoulders. It’s one of the keywords they learned in counselling years and years ago, _I’ve got you_ , a statement and a promise all in one, and he’s meant every damn word every single time he’s said it. He sees her tiny nod, and he knows she heard him and understands.

Taking a deep breath, he puts his game face on and slides his hands down her shoulders, doing his best to smoulder intensely for the audience’s benefit while simultaneously wishing that he could blow his nose. (It is considerably more difficult than it sounds.) And then they’re into the program, the crowd clapping along enthusiastically, and the adrenaline takes over. It’s going to be fine, he realizes as they head into the first set of twizzles. He’s _got_ this.

And he does. He screws up a set of twizzles early in El Tango de Roxanne, leaves out a full rotation and kicks himself for it mentally, but he moves on quickly. In a few seconds, he’s got her hips under his hands, humming _walk the streets for money_ under his breath, and they’re back in sync. She keeps checking in on him all the way through, though, and he can tell she’s worried. Her smile is wide and bright and dazzling, just like it always is, but he knows from the way her eyes flit across his face that she’s concerned.

The lifts are flawless, though (he prides himself on that), and even though it hurts like hell to speak, let alone sing, he serenades her through every damn bar of Come What May. When she hits the final pose, he stands there holding her, fighting for breath, shaking a little from the exertion and the adrenaline.

“Just breathe,” she whispers to him, and then they’re twirling for their bows, and he’s so exhausted and so muddled that at one point he just takes both her hands in his and stands there smiling at her like an idiot. He’s so _tired_ , so tired he can barely stand anymore. All the adrenaline’s wearing off, and he’s about to crash.

“It’s okay,” she mouths, and then they take their final bow and skate off, waving to Yuna as she weaves her way between them. Backstage, he collapses into the nearest available chair and buries his face in his hands.

“Oh, Scott,” she whispers, and he can feel her hand gently stroking his back. “Maybe we should tell Stephane you need a doctor. You look…”

She trails off, which he supposes is her way of trying to not insult him. He really doesn’t care either way.

“Just sit with me,” he pleads, reaching out a hand for her, and she sinks into the chair beside him. He curls into her helplessly, and she lays a cool hand on his cheek, her thumb skimming over his cheekbone.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, presses a kiss to his forehead regardless of who might see. “We pushed too hard, didn’t we?”

He shakes his head minutely. It hurts to move.

“We agreed on this,” he says. “It was a good idea. I…” he shivers, “...I probably shouldn’t have gone to that many schools. Probably picked this up from the little anklebiters.”

She chuckles.

“They loved you so much, though,” she says fondly. “Charlotte’s face when Danny told her you were coming to her school - that was priceless.”

He grins at the memory, despite how miserable he currently is.

“Yeah,” he says, nuzzling a little farther into her neck, “she was really pumped. She made us a card, you know.”

Tessa makes a little distressed noise.

“Scott, I know, it’s on our fridge in Montreal,” she says, sounding very worried again. “You know that.”

“Right, right,” he says, waving one hand limply as if to shoo his absurd lapse of memory away. “I knew that. But you didn’t know about the _first_ card.”

She leans away enough to stare down her nose at him.

“The first card?”

“Yeah,” he says, and turns his head so he can cough. “She made a different one first, and the teacher made her re-do it.”

“Why on earth would she…” Tessa starts, and he smirks.

“Because there were cameras everywhere that day, and the first one she made said ‘To Uncle Scott and Aunt Tessa.’”

“Oh,” says Tessa, faintly. “Well, then.”

He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her in close, looking up at her as she processes this information. He can’t decide whether she looks stunned or terrified, and decides to push it a little farther.

“See? Part of the family.”

She smiles then, shakily, and leans in to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” she whispers, and smiles even brighter, making his heart thud wildly in his chest. “I guess I am.”

At that precise moment, Gabi comes sauntering past, looking at the two of them with an expression that reminds him of the time Danny stepped in cow manure out in their granddad’s back pasture.

“It is almost time for the finale,” she informs Tessa, and she eyes the Moulin Rouge costume Tess is still in with thinly veiled disdain. Tess, to her credit, smiles politely.

“Thanks, I guess we’d better go change,” is all she says in reply, but she waits for Gabi to move along before she takes Scott’s face in her hands.

“Go get ready,” she says, looking worried again. “And if you fall over in the dressing room, send Chiddy or Eric to come get me.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” he says, and she huffs out an irritated breath through her nose.

“Yes, _just fine_ ,” she mutters, and gets up to walk away. He grabs her hand.

“See you in ten?”

She softens minutely.

“In ten,” she says, and then she’s off. He stares forlornly at the floor. Really, he doesn’t think that anyone would _notice_ if he wore his Moulin Rouge costume in the finale. One less night he would have put on that disgustingly shiny brown excuse for a jacket, at least.

(Two minutes later, Chiddy and Eric are gently frog-marching him into the men’s changing room, and then Jeff makes him take something small and white, and things get a little fuzzy after that.)

By the time they actually get out on the ice for the finale, he’s in a sort of delightful floating place that only bears a passing resemblance to the Mokdong Ice Rink. It’s _wonderful_. He runs around before the number starts high-fiving Eric and Guillaume and grinning cheerfully at everyone he sees. They are supposed to be getting into place for their bows, and he’s smiling happily at a flag waving in his peripheral vision when Tess tugs at his sleeve, muttering _turn around_ out of the corner of her mouth.

They do their twists and twirls for the finale, form one big line on one side of the ice, and then for some reason he decides to head over to the other side a little early. Again, he feels Tessa’s tug on his sleeve, and he stays in place, bows and waves with the rest. When he glances to the side, she has a slightly frantic look in her eyes.

“It’s all _good_ ,” he tries to explain, but she doesn’t look even remotely convinced. He wants to stop everything for a minute, tell her how lovely and floaty everything is, how pretty the lights are when they’re all hazy at the edges, but then she tilts her head to the side and heads off around the rink, waving and smiling, and he follows suit.

Chiddy skates up beside him.

“Hi!” Scott chirps enthusiastically, and Chiddy raises an eyebrow. He slings an arm around Scott’s neck and grins at him.

“You better?” he asks, and Scott grins maniacally.

“I feel _great_ ,” he pronounces with considerable good cheer, and Chiddy’s eyes widen a little.

“All right,” he replies, dubiously, and then he skates away and they’re all coming together at center ice. Immediately, Scott finds her, laughing with the girls, and pulls her into his side. She fits there so perfectly, he muses, tiny and warm and perfect, and really she is the best thing in his entire life and he really ought to _tell_ her that. Maybe he should get a microphone and just tell everyone. Once during CSOI wasn’t _nearly_ enough.

Before he can put this excellent plan into motion, they’re smiling and waving at the crowd again, and then he’s lifting T to his shoulder for the final pose. He doesn’t even notice where his hand is until she nudges him in the ribs with her boot, and then he abruptly realizes that, instead of putting his hand on her lower thigh like he was supposed to, he’s practically going to third base. He shifts it down, quickly, and feels a flush creep up his neck.

“Sorry,” he mutters as he brings her down, but she shakes her head, telling him without words that it doesn’t matter, she knows he didn’t mean it.

“Come on,” she whispers, and after one more bow they’re skating off the ice, finally. It seems so nice, the dimness and the cool of it, because the hazy lights in the arena had just started this thing where they were swirling together and then breaking apart, and it was getting a little hard to keep up with them.

When he stops to put on his skate guards, he sways on his feet, knees starting to buckle, and she rushes to him, snapping, “Chiddy! Eric!” as she tries to prop him up. Before he quite knows what’s happening, there are two strong pairs of hands under his arms, guiding him to a row of chairs, and he’s lying flat on his back staring at the ceiling.

He can hear Tessa’s voice, sliding up in disbelief as she asks, “What the hell did you two _give_ him? He’s as high as a kite! For God’s sake, tell me you didn’t give him some herbal powder or root or something, because I will seriously…”

Scott closes his eyes, and only vaguely hears Jeff’s apologetic murmur.

“Tessa, I’m sorry - I thought I was giving him Advil, but it turns out it was Advil PM, and I guess he doesn’t react to it well?”

She makes a frustrated sort of noise in the back of her throat.

“No, he really doesn’t. He never has. That, on top of all that cough syrup from earlier, and no wonder he’s out of it. When’s the bus coming?”

He loses track of things after that. Somewhere he dimly realizes that he feels very warm and very cold alternately, that somebody is making him get up and helping him to the changing room and shoving his duffle bag at him. There are gaps in time here and there, but somehow or other he ends up in his street clothes, on a bus with Tessa tucked into his side, her hand in his and her voice whispering _sleep, Scott, just sleep it off, okay?_

And then he drifts off and doesn’t remember a single thing until they’re pulling up in front of the hotel.

* * *

 

 When they finally walk in to the lobby, he’s back to full sentience, but unfortunately he’s also back to feeling like hell. Between the head cold and the aftereffects of Advil PM, he can barely stand up straight, let alone find his own way back to her room. He hasn’t spent a single night in the one they assigned him, can’t imagine sleeping apart from her at this point. (He’s done enough of that already, thanks very much.)

When he stumbles getting into the elevator, she hisses in a breath and grabs his arm, hard.

“Scott,” she says, sounding shocked. “Are you all right to walk? Baby...you don’t look well. At all.”

He knows it’s bad when she calls him _baby_ outside of their bed. Shit, but this is worse than he thought. He leans against the elevator wall, resting his head against the cool wood. It feels wonderful against his burning skin.

“I’m...I’m good,” he manages, closing his eyes. She punches the button for their floor, and he can feel the lurch as the elevator car shifts into gear. His bones are aching, and his joints feel like they’ve all been pulled in separate directions. Dimly, he remembers something he learned in history class when he was a kid, something about being stretched on the rack and a Spanish guy named Torquemada. That’s exactly what this feels like.

He’s not entirely sure how he manages to make it down the hall to her room (their room, really) or how she holds him up until he collapses face-down on the bed. He only really swims back to semi-coherency when she sits beside him and presses her hand to his forehead.

“You’re so warm,” she murmurs, and he hates the worried note in her voice. She’s worried enough about him over the course of the past 21 years, worried about his drinking and his habit of dating women who look just like her and about being good enough for him (which is still the stupidest thing he’s ever heard in his life). She doesn’t need to worry about this too.

“Tess,” he croaks into the pillow. “I’m fine. Just a cold. Nothing to - ” he breaks off when a coughing spasm overtakes him “ - to worry about.”

She ignores him.

“Maybe we should find a clinic, or call a doctor, or something. I’m sure All That Skate has someone on retainer, because I really don’t think you should get up again.”

He wants to roll his eyes, but his face is still smushed into the pillow, and he really doesn’t feel like moving his head. At all.

“No doctor,” he grumbles. “I’m _fine._ ”

He hears her irritated little huff.

“You don’t look fine, or sound fine, and you were half-stoned during the entire final number,” she points out, and he knows without even looking that she’s ticking off her points on her fingers, the way she’s done during every argument the entire time he’s known her.

“I wasn’t stoned,” he argues, halfway turning over because this is actually an important point to make.

“I know that,” she says gently, skimming her fingers over his cheek. He turns into her touch without thinking. “But you were on out of it, on autopilot the whole time. Which tells me something’s wrong. You hardly ever do that.”

He reaches out for her hand, twisting his fingers around hers. She needs to understand this, needs to know that he’d never put her safety in jeopardy.

“I wouldn’t have gone on if I thought I couldn’t hold you.”

Her entire face softens, the worry lines fading away as she bends down to press a kiss to his temple.

“I know…” she murmurs into his skin. “You would never risk that. I know.”

It’s her quiet confidence, that bedrock certainty in her voice, that has him biting his lip to hold back a sudden swell of emotion. He’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, ever since he was a little kid, but when he’s this sick it’s like all his usual defenses fall all at once, and he’s flayed open, raw. It’s embarrassing, to be honest.

When he sneaks a glance at her, she smiles back and presses her thumb into his palm. She knows exactly what’s going on, but she doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to.

“I still want to take your temperature,” she says after a moment, giving him time to pull himself together. He sniffs and tugs at her hand, which is ridiculously childish. He absolutely does not care.

“I don’t want to.”

Tessa gives him a _look_.

“Don’t be stubborn.”

He groans, feels the reverberations throughout his sinuses. God, but this is awful.

“Tess, please,” and he thinks he may just curl up and die from the pain in his head. “I just want to lay here and be still. It hurts.”

He’s begging and whiny and he ought to be embarrassed at how pathetic he is, but he isn’t. Even when he’s in pain (especially when he’s in pain), just having her next to him is a comfort. Why she puts up with his bullshit is anybody’s guess, but she always has, ever since they were little kids.

She sighs, but he can see the second she relents. Slowly, she slides down next to him, curling into his body.

“You’re so grouchy when you’re sick,” she says, but her tone is both wry and very fond. “Such a baby.”

He tries his best to bristle and fails horribly.

“Don’t pick on me, T, it’s not fair.” He sniffles dramatically, and she laughs at him. (Christ, he loves that sound. Twenty-one years together, and he still lights up when he hears her laugh.)

“I’m not picking on you,” she retorts, but it’s soft. “Have you eaten anything since lunch?”

He shakes his head.

“Not hungry.”

She frowns and scoots closer, anchoring her arm around his waist. He doesn’t know if there’s any scientific basis to it, but he swears that when she’s holding him like this, he feels a little better.

“You need to eat something. You can’t take anything for your headache on an empty stomach.” She checks the clock on the nightstand. "It's been long enough since you took that Advil PM for you to have something else, I think."

He thinks about the room service menu, but nothing sounds good. What he really wants is chicken soup, homemade, his mother’s recipe. Unfortunately, that does not seem likely to happen anytime soon. (If he’s being completely honest, it wouldn’t happen at home in Montreal either. Tessa is beautiful and brilliant and the love of his goddamn life, but she is hell on wheels in the kitchen and they both know it.)

“Nothing sounds good,” he grouses, and risks pressing a kiss to her hair. He can’t really smell her usual scent, stuffed up as he is, but it’s still comforting. He doesn’t want to get her sick too, knows that he really should insist that she go sleep in the other room while they’re on tour, but he selfishly wants her here. Everything is less miserable when she’s here, and besides, he knows she’ll refuse to go either way.

“You still have to eat something,” Tessa says firmly, and starts to shift away. He hastily curls an arm around her to keep her still.

“No, don’t,” he mutters, and she huffs out a half-chuckle.

“I’m ordering you food,” she says, determined. “But I can’t do that if you won’t let me go.”

“I don’t want food,” he protests, and he really did not think he could get any more pathetic, but clearly he was wrong. “I just want to lay here with you.”

“Oh, all _right_ ,” she says. “But just for a minute. Someone has to take care of you.”

“You always take care of me,” and it’s true. He watches hazily through half-lidded eyes as she curls into him, lets himself drift away for a moment as she gently rubs his back. He’s nearly asleep when she carefully extricates herself and rolls away.

“Mmmm, no,” he says, muffled by the pillow, but it’s too late and she’s already grabbed the room phone and stepped over to the window, talking softly so he can’t quite hear what she’s saying. When she comes back, he reaches for her reflexively.

“Uh-uh,” she says, and he knows that tone. It’s all business, and he curls deeper into the pillow as if that will somehow save him. “Go get a shower while you’re still able to move. I’ll put one of those eucalyptus bomb things in there, it’ll clear up your head a little.”

He pulls the pillow over his head.

“Scott Moir,” he hears faintly, and then her hands slide up his back, gently cup the back of his neck. “Get _up_.”

He moans pitiably.

“That is _not_ going to work.” There’s a pause, a calculating pause, and when she speaks again, her voice has changed, gone low and husky. “Do I have to do this myself?”

He’s not sure whether she means undressing him or hauling him bodily into the shower. The former would be just fine by him, and he’s fairly certain that no matter how strong she is, she can’t actually accomplish the latter. Taking a chance, he peeks out from under the pillow.

“If you wanted to get me naked, Tess, all you really had to do was ask,” he says, and does his best to smirk.

She tries very hard to look severe, but the twitch at the corner of her mouth gives her away.

“If you’re feeling well enough to make a pass at me, you’re well enough to get in the shower,” she says, and then reaches down and tugs his shirt out of his waistband. “There, got you started. Go on.”

Sighing, he hauls himself into a sitting position and looks at her sadly.

“Just you wait till you’re sick,” he says morosely. “I’ll have you in the shower so fast…”

He trails off, realizing what he just said, and looks over to find Tessa snickering behind her hand.

“Dammit, I give up. I’m just going to…” She’s still laughing, and he sighs. “I’m never going to win, am I?”

Her eyes are bright and clear and fanned with laugh lines. She’s beautiful.

“Nope,” she says, and kisses his cheek. “Go.”

He does as he’s told.

* * *

The eucalyptus bomb thing works wonders, and he can _almost_ breathe through his nose again by the time he leaves the steam-filled bathroom. She’s perched on the chair by the tiny writing desk with a tray beside her, typing something on her phone.

“Found you some soup,” she says, and grins at him. “You look like you feel a little better.”

He does, but admitting it would mean she was right.

“Hmm,” he mutters morosely, and goes to rummage in the suitcase by the door where they keep essentials like clean underwear and socks. “You know where my pajamas are, T?”

She glances up from her phone.

“Side pocket,” she says absent-mindedly as she finishes whatever she was typing. “There’s extra-strength ibuprofen in my medicine kit.”

Tessa, ever-prepared, brings a small black bag of over-the-counter medications everywhere she travels. He’s had to resort to it time and again over the years, but he doesn’t think he’s ever been more grateful for it than now.

“Thank you,” he tells her as he sets the bottle on the table. He leans over to kiss her forehead. “Don’t know what I’d do without you, kiddo.”

She flushes a little at the compliment, which still surprises him to this day. Then again, Tess has never once fully realized how incredible she is, a situation he is bound and determined to rectify if it takes him until he’s old and grey.

“It’s not really chicken soup like you’re used to, but it’s the best the kitchen staff had,” she explains. “They required a little...convincing.”

He chuckles as he sits down.

“Convincing, eh?”

She smiles demurely.

“Mm-hmm.” Her phone buzzes, and she glances at it for a moment. “As it turns out, Jun-Seo, who’s the head chef, is one of our biggest fans. He has our entire free dance memorized, it seems.”

He’s in the middle of his first bite when he realizes what she just said.

“Tessa,” he says slowly, “did you really use the fact that we are _Olympic champions_ to get me a bowl of sort-of chicken soup?”

She gives him a positively ingenuous look.

“Of course not. I simply mentioned our names and All That Skate and he put the pieces together himself.” She looks extremely pleased with herself. “I may have promised him a joint autograph, though.”

He nearly chokes on his noodles. (For the record, Jun-Seo makes a damn good bowl of sort-of chicken soup. The noodles are wide and flat, and there are a few spices he doesn’t recognize, but it’s hot and soothing and exactly what he needed.)

“ _Tessa_.” He sounds scandalized, but he can’t help it. “You promised him an _autograph?_ ”

She actually smirks.

“It’s past midnight. How else was I supposed to get him to make anything?”

He shakes his head, not sure whether to be appalled or impressed.

“A force of nature,” he mutters into the bowl of his spoon, and she grins widely.

They’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

“That’ll be Chiddy,” she says, and holds up her phone, its screen filled with texts. “He made you tea.”

“No,” he groans immediately. “Please God, no.” He knows Chiddy’s odd tea obsession better than almost anyone, and he absolutely does not want to have some horrific loose-leaf herbal concoction shoved down his throat. No. Not happening.

Tessa glares at him.

“ _Be_ _nice_ ,” she hisses, and goes to answer the door. Chiddy immediately pokes his head in and grins.

“Still feeling under the weather?” he says, and holds up a large thermos. “This should help a bit. It’s chamomile, with valerian to help you sleep and some spearmint for the congestion.”

Scott rests his head on one hand and tries to look appreciative.

“Uh-huh,” he says, and because it’s Chiddy, he can’t resist adding, “Sounds very tasty.”

Patrick gives him a chastising sort of look.

“It’s supposed to _help_ ,” he says. “And Meagan gave me some of her herbal vegan powder stuff that’s supposed to up your vitamin intake and realign your chakra and I don’t know what all else. Apparently it makes you do everything short of cartwheeling down the halls.”

He can’t help but chuckle. God, he has the strangest group of friends, and he wouldn’t trade a single one of them for the world.

“Thanks, Chiddy,” he says, and then coughs. “If I end up cartwheeling, I promise to get Tess to video it.”

Tessa rolls her eyes. “There will be no cartwheeling. Or videos. Just sleep, and lots of it.”

Patrick smiles and hugs her.

“I’m not getting anywhere close to you,” he informs Scott as he squeezes Tess and then lets her go. “I don’t want anything even resembling what you have. You look like hell.”

“Love you too,” Scott smarts off, and Chiddy’s laughing on his way out the door.

“Drink up and get better,” he says, and then the lock clicks behind him and it’s just the two of them again.

“You are drinking some of this, you know,” she says bossily, wandering over to the little kitchenette to grab a mug. “It’ll help. Even if it does taste nasty.”

Two cups later, he maintains that it tastes thoroughly nasty, but something about it seems to be working nonetheless. Between the ibuprofen Tess gave him and whatever was in the tea, he feels sleepy for the first time in days. Not tired - he’s been tired down to his bones for what feels like years, but actually _sleepy_. It’s a wonderful feeling, and as he curls up under the duvet and hooks an arm underneath his pillow, he revels in the easy drowsiness that’s creeping over him.

There’s only one thing missing.

“Te-ess,” he cajoles, lifting heavy eyelids to watch her sitting at the little writing desk, typing quickly on her laptop. “Baby. Come to bed.”

She holds up a finger and keeps typing, which is usually her signal for _I heard you, but I’m in the middle of a sentence and don’t want to forget it._ He waits patiently for what feels like a very long time, but she’s still typing, face set and focussed, and while he knows perfectly well he should leave her alone and go to sleep like a sensible, independent human being, he really just wants her _here_ , right beside him.

“Tutu,” he mumbles. He hasn’t used that one in a long, long time, mostly because it was his nickname for her when they were little kids. It’s been many years since she wore ballet shoes almost as much as skates.

“I’m almost finished,” she says distractedly, and then bites her thumbnail as she reads back over what she wrote. “It’s Nivea stuff, shouldn’t take much longer. Just have to fix this...here…”

And then she’s back to typing again. Scott is normally very, very proud of her numerous sponsorship deals. She’s smart and business-savvy and excellent at politely deflecting the insanely large proportion of asshats who like to criticize her life choices, and he is incredibly glad that she’s so good at what she does. But right now, at this precise moment, he just wants to curl up around her, bury his face in her shoulder, and sweet-talk her into playing with his hair so he can finally go to sleep.

“Are you posting stuff about me sniffing your arms again?” he asks, because if she won’t come cuddle yet, he might as well make conversation. “For the record, I’m fine with that. I’m even willing to pose just for the occasion.”

She snickers.

“No,” she says, and flicks her thumbnail against her teeth the way she always does when she’s trying to think about two things at once. “I got enough flak the last time I tried that. Not happening again.”

He rolls his eyes, and then regrets it. Even his eyeballs are sore.

“You sure?” he teases. “What about this HelloFresh thing? If we’re being honest, here, T, the two of us in matching aprons could be one hell of an advertising strategy.”

In the glowing light of her computer screen, he can see her lips press together like she’s holding in laughter.

“Maybe if we put you in _just_ an apron,” she mutters, and he swears his jaw nearly drops. He loves it so fucking much when she plays like this, flirty and seductive and so damn funny. No one but Jordan and him will ever fully realize how funny Tessa is, which is a damned shame.

“I didn’t know it was _that_ kind of product, T,” he says when he can speak again. “But whatever you want. I’m game.”

She looks up from her laptop at that and bites her lower lip.

“Looks like I’ll be investing in an apron, then,” she says, deadpan, and he laughs so hard he starts coughing and ends up wheezing into the pillow while she comes over and thumps his back.

“Jesus, T, you’re going to kill me one of these days,” he huffs out when he’s kind of got his breath back. She sits down on the edge of the bed beside him and cups his face in her hand.

“Not such a bad way to go,” she says drily, but punctuates the quip with a quick kiss to his forehead. “All right, I’ll finish my stuff up in the morning. You need sleep, you’re starting to say crazy things.”

She kisses him again, lips skimming over his cheekbone, and gets up to change into her pyjamas. He watches her quietly from his vantage point on the bed. He may be sick, and there’s no way in hell he’s going to be able to do anything tonight, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to look.

She pulls her soft cotton shirt over her head, shucks off her Lululemons, and stands there for a minute in just her simple black boyshorts, rummaging around in her suitcase for her pyjamas. For what has to be the thousandth time he runs his eyes over her, all creamy skin and stray freckles here and there, strong legs and toned abs and dark hair falling out of its braid down her back. He loves every inch of her, from the faint scars on her legs to the utter perfection of her ass, and he wants her to know it every day of his life. He wasted so much time, he thinks, running after everything except the person he wanted most. He doesn’t want to waste another moment.

“You’re so damn beautiful,” he says, the words a little slurred from the desire to sleep that’s pulling him under like a tidal wave. “Just thought you should know.”

She turns from the suitcase, smiling, and blows him a kiss.

“I’ll thank you properly for that when you’re all better,” she says, and he shifts under the duvet. Even with a fever and a raging head cold, his body still responds to her, like an autonomic reflex or something.

“I’ll remember that,” he mutters, and then she pulls her pyjamas on and heads off to the bathroom, toothbrush in hand. He drifts for long moments, slow and lazy and warm, and only rouses slightly when she slides into bed next to him and clicks off the lamp.

“Oh, good,” he mutters, already half-asleep, and he feels her silent chuckle as he drapes his arm around her waist. “What’s funny?”

She doesn’t answer, just rolls over and gently shoves at him until he flips around; when she’s got him situated to her satisfaction, she curls herself around him, nuzzling into the back of his neck. He hums with pleasure when she leans up just a little to press a kiss behind his ear.

“I can play with your hair better this way,” she whispers, and then her slim fingers slide into his still-damp hair, scratching lightly along his scalp, and he’s in heaven.

He fucking _loves_ it when she plays with his hair, has loved it for the better part of 20 years. It calms him down when he’s restless or nervous, soothes him when he’s miserable or scared, and God knows it’s a turn-on when she stares at him with a challenge in her eyes, grabs his hair, and _pulls_. (He has vivid, vivid memories of her doing exactly that on the ice during Carmen, and he really thought he would explode with highly inappropriate levels of arousal in front of God, his parents, and Skate Canada.) Off the ice, she figured out by the second time they had sex that tugging his hair results in a near-complete loss of control, and has shamelessly used that realisation to her advantage ever since.

Right now, though, she’s doing it purely to comfort, long, slow sweeps of her fingers through the messy strands, her breathing deliberately measured. She’s warm and soft, pressed up against his back, her lashes tickling the sensitive skin at his nape, and he’s so peaceful and safe and _loved_ that he wishes he could stay right here for the rest of time. It’s these moments, the quiet ones in the little cocoon of their bed (no matter where they are), that choke him up a bit, make him realize how damned lucky he is to have her. How, when they’re 85 and tottering around with glasses and canes watching Jeopardy together, she’ll still be the only woman he wants to fall asleep next to.

Groggily, he reaches for her other hand and tugs it around his body, pulls it up to his mouth, and presses a kiss to the palm.

“Love you,” he mutters, and he hears her breath catch behind him.

“Love you too,” she murmurs, and then she pulls her hand out of his to curl it around his ribcage and holds him as close as she possibly can. He rests his hand over hers, laces their fingers together, and lets himself relax into her hold. Slowly, deliberately, she pulls in a deep breath, lets it out, and he feels his heartbeat slow in time with hers.

The last thing he remembers before he loses consciousness is the feeling of her fingers twined with his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I've never done this before with any fic for any fandom, but I'm feeling froggy tonight. If you want to come holler at me about this or any other V/M fic, come find me on Twitter via @fairwinds_09. 
> 
> (I have a Tumblr but I literally check it once a month. I'm not even going to bother putting it on here.)
> 
>  
> 
> A/N after the fact: I absolutely messed up the order of their programs - YRMW should have come after Moulin Rouge, not before. However, at this point, to change it would disrupt the progression of the whole first section, so...kindly suspend your disbelief on the hangers provided to your right. Thanks!


	2. somethin' like sanctified

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an Instagram comment opens old wounds, discussions are had, and Tessa resembles an enraged honey badger. 
> 
> (tooth-rotting fluff with significant amounts of angst sandwiched in)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for all the delightful comments and kudos on the last chapter! You are all lovely. The loveliest. 
> 
> So...this chapter deals with one of the nastier comments left on Tessa's Instagram. You might remember it from a week or two back - something about Scott being a lousy partner, not worthy of Tessa, out getting drunk every night, etc., etc. And then Tessa went and liked a vehement defense made in response to said comment, and the fandom went bananas, as per our usual. 
> 
> This chapter was an effort to dig into the possible implications of said comment and all subsequent events. (In reality, Tessa probably hit "like" on the one defending Scott and there was an end to it, but...that's no good for fic.) It also deals with a ton of my headcanon regarding the post-Sochi blues, much of which is based on Scott's podcast with Scotty Livingston. 
> 
> Last chapter was a lot fluffier than this one, so be forewarned. Never fear, though - this one starts and ends with fluff. (Did you think I could write a chapter without fluff? Really, did you?) Also, the restaurant mentioned is real, and looks delicious. (You can check it out yourself [here](http://www.theseoulguide.com/restaurants/the-flying-pan-blue/).)
> 
> Finally, if you are the first to figure out where the chapter titles are coming from, I will gratuitously throw your name into the next chapter somewhere or other. Just because it's a game, and I enjoy those. :)
> 
> So...please read, enjoy, drop a comment if the spirit so moves you. Happy reading!

When he awakes, there are bright squares of sunlight stretched across the foot of their bed, he is ravenously hungry, and he has no fucking clue what time it is.

He also isn’t sure where Tessa is until he rolls over and faceplants into her hip. She’s sitting up in bed, still in her pyjamas, scrolling on her phone, but when she sees him looking up at her, she puts it on the nightstand and glances down at him with a smile.

“Morning,” she says, and slides a gentle hand down his back. “Feel any better?”

He takes mental inventory, and is pleased to discover that he does, in fact, feel slightly less like dying. His head still aches a little, and his throat is kind of sore, but the pounding and the congestion and the impending sense that he was going to fall over and not be able to get back up on his own all seem to have vanished into thin air. He really owes Chiddy and Meagan a debt of gratitude. (And Jun-Seo, whose sort-of chicken soup seems to have worked wonders.)

“Better,” he says, but it comes out as an unintelligible croak. She raises an eyebrow, and he clears his throat. “Better,” he tries again. “Lots better.”

She looks very pleased.

“Good,” she says, and ruffles his hair. “I figured finally getting some good sleep would help.”

“Mm-hmm,” he sighs contentedly, and rests his cheek against her hip. He could sit up and greet her properly, he supposes, but it seems like a lot of work and she’s already playing with his hair again, so…

“You’re up early,” he says, curving one arm around her thighs. “Couldn’t sleep?”

She shrugs.

“I had some things to finish up this morning,” she says. “Besides, it’s nearly 11:00 AM.”

He jolts up to one elbow.

“Did we miss practice?” he asks, feeling a bolt of genuine panic shoot through him. “Oh God, that’s fucking embarrassing. Why didn’t you wake me?”

Tessa gives him a look that very clearly says _don’t be so dramatic._

“We didn’t have practice this morning,” she says patiently. “You don’t remember because you were out of it, but they told us last night before the show. There’s open warm-up at 1:00 if we want to go, but other than that, we’re free till call.”

He relaxes back on the bed, more grateful than ever that Tess is so damned detail-oriented.

“Oh,” he mutters. “Sorry, T, I should’ve figured.”

She reaches down and pinches his earlobe between fingernail and thumb, which is Tessa-speak for _you’re an idiot sometimes but I love you anyway._

“Uh-huh,” is all she says, but she doesn’t stop him when he leans over and kisses the bare skin peeking out between her cotton cami and her pyjama shorts, and he catches her smile as he pulls away.

They lie there in contented silence for a bit longer; he plays with the hem of her shorts, because he’s fidgety even when he’s relaxing, and she picks her phone back up and resumes scrolling. At one point, he tilts his head just enough to see what she’s looking at. Instagram, apparently.

“Anything good?” he asks, and she hums and rubs her foot against his leg.

“Just reading through comments,” she says, and then shifts her foot a little higher. “And looking at fan edits. My God, but some of these people must have degrees in this kind of thing.”

He’s not sure whether she realizes it or not, but her toes are by this point brushing against his ass, and he just woke up not that long ago, and he’s _definitely_ feeling better.

“Tess…” he begins, sliding his fingers just under the hem of her little pyjama shorts with a half-formed idea of some lazy fooling around before they have to get up and get ready. It’s an excellent plan, he thinks, until she suddenly stiffens, sucks in a sharp breath, and her eyes flare.

“What?” he says, automatically drawing his hand back. She’s not shy about telling him when she’s not in the mood (although it’s incredibly rare for her not to be), but she’s never reacted to him like _this_ before.

“ _Assholes_ ,” she spits through her teeth, sitting bolt-upright against her pillow, and his mouth opens a little with shock. Tessa is quite capable of swearing, but she usually doesn’t pull out anything stronger than _damn_ unless she’s truly upset. He sits up, quickly.

“What is it?” he asks, but she’s staring at her phone like it’s a venomous snake.

“Fucking _assholes_ ,” she hisses, and he can feel his eyebrows creep up next to his hairline. She almost _never_ swears like this.

“T, what’s wrong?” he asks, laying a hand on her wrist. She looks up at him, eyes dilated with sheer rage, and slaps the phone face-down beside her.

“Tessa,” he says, a ball of nerves knotting in his stomach. “What the hell is going on? What did they say?” He’s fairly sure this is about someone’s comment she just read, and so help him, if one more sanctimonious fuckwad made some snarky remark about Tess eating doughnuts, he’s going to come unwound.

“It’s nothing,” she says, but the rapid flutter of her breathing and the way she’s gritting her teeth are not exactly proving her point. “Not a big deal. Just...some idiot online. Not worth the trouble.”

He stares at her. _Not worth the trouble_ , and she’s already cussing before noon? He doesn’t think so.

“Just tell me.”

She shakes her head, adamant.

“It’s just some...some _fucker_ with too much time on his hands,” she insists, and if he was surprised before, he’s practically in shock now. Tessa Jane McCormick Virtue, using a variant of fuck twice in five minutes...it’s like sighting a unicorn.

“T, you’re scaring me a little,” he says, truthfully, and reaches for her phone. She promptly clamps her hand over it, her eyes darting to the side.

“Just...show me, okay? It’s just us, together.”

It’s a low blow, using one of their keywords against her in a moment like this, but she’s beginning to seriously freak him out, and he just wants to know how to help.

“It’s...hateful,” she says in a low voice, biting her bottom lip the way she does when she’s nervous about something personal. She doesn’t do it before she skates, but in a loaded conversation like this one, it’s one of her oldest tells. “I don’t want you to see it.”

“Tess, how bad could it be?” he pleads. “I swear to God, if they’re saying shit about you…”

“It’s not that,” she says, warily. “Just...don’t take it seriously, okay?”

He frowns. She usually handles stuff like this with mild annoyance, not...whatever this is. Slowly, he reaches for her phone again, hoping that she’ll let him this time, that she’ll share whatever it is that’s eating at her. When he presses his thumb to the home button to unlock it (because of course his print is on her phone), her Instagram account immediately flashes up, and there is is, the comment that sent her into such a tailspin.

He reads the thread once, twice, and then sets the phone down. It’s ugly, although certainly no worse than some of the shit that’s been thrown at them over the years...everything from women he’s never met openly tweeting that they’ve slept with him (with helpful commentary on his technique in bed) to that awful rumour about Tessa and David that circulated before Vancouver. (That one might really have been the worst.)

But this - this is nowhere _close_ to the humiliation of those debacles. This is just some internet troll testing the waters, insinuating that Scott’s a sloppy drunk, a bad partner, and thoroughly undeserving of Tessa. (And fat, apparently.) It’s bullshit. He knows it, Tess knows it, and so does 98% of the rest of the world, if the subsequent commentary is any indication. Yes, it stings a little to have the memory of his post-Sochi idiocy flung in his face in an Instagram post, to know that his bad choices three and four years ago opened him up to stuff like this, but there’s nothing he can do about it now. He made the changes he needed to make, faced up to his problems, and he’s got two gold medals in his sock drawer and Tessa by his side as a result. All told, he’s thoroughly enthused about the way things turned out, even if the journey there was less than ideal in some places.

None of this, however, explains her intense reaction. Overreaction, even, because he cannot for the life of him figure out why she still looks like she wants to spit nails. It was a stupid, cruel, baseless comment, but he’s had far worse.

“It’s not that bad, T,” he offers, nudging the phone with his finger. “Stupid, yeah, but this isn’t the worst by a long shot.”

She glares at him.

“They have no _right_ ,” she snaps, fiercely. “They have no right to say things like that about you. To say that I deserve better. They have no _idea_ what you went through, how hard you’ve worked. No _fucking_ idea.”

And that’s the third f-bomb she’s dropped in less than 20 minutes. Maybe he’s walked into a parallel universe or something.

“Tess,” he says, softly, trying to calm her down. “It’s just a stupid comment on an Instagram post. It’s not - ”

She cuts him off, eyes blazing.

“It’s _not_ ‘just’ anything. I get that we’re public figures, that we get all kinds of comments on social media - good, bad, and in between. I even kind of get fans tweeting all the get married comments to us, because even though it’s a lot, at least it’s sort of out of love. But holy _shit_ , Scott, no one has the right to call you a sloppy drunk or a bad partner. _No one_.”

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes for a moment, and he sits there in stunned awe. Tessa very rarely loses her temper like this, and when she does, she’s like a cyclone, turning everything in her path to fragmented debris. And the fact that she’s currently this furious for _him_ , on his behalf, makes something warm and sweet and golden unfurl in the centre of his chest.

“I wasn’t there for you like I should’ve been, after Sochi,” she says with her eyes closed. They’ve talked about this before, in therapy with JF and in the privacy of their bed, late at night when secrets come pouring out of them like water through a sieve. Still, even the mention of the 2014 Olympics makes him uncomfortable still, tension spreading through his muscles.

“Tess, it isn’t - ” he begins, but she opens her eyes, reaches for his hand, and squeezes.

“Let me finish,” she says softly, and he nods. “I wasn’t there for a lot of it. We weren’t there for each other. But I knew. I knew you were struggling, I knew you were drinking far, far too much, and I knew part of it was because of me. I knew all of that. And then you hit rock bottom, and you made a decision to change, and you _worked_. You worked so damn hard, Scott, to pull yourself up and out of all that, to get better, to be the person you knew you needed to be. I was so proud of you, even with all the mess that we were back then, and I’m even prouder of you now.”

She pauses, draws in another breath while her thumb rubs repetitively against the join of his finger and thumb.

“You worked your ass off to get better, and now you’re so focussed on making sure that you have the kind of image that people will remember as something good, something _positive_ instead of just another drunken party animal,” she continues. “So yeah, I get pissed off when I see comments like that, because it’s _not_ fair to who you are now, or all the work you did to get here, and it’s sure as hell not fair to our partnership. They have no earthly clue how good you are as a partner, how careful you are with me, how much you care about the sport and always will. They have no _idea_.”

He sits there for a moment just looking at her, stunned into silence. There’s a knot deep in his stomach, and his throat is dry. He knows part of it is the sickness, that he’s still exhausted and a little vulnerable because of it, but there’s something deep within him that insists that it would be same regardless, that he  will never be able to listen to her defending him like this without guilt spreading through his body like a fever.

“Tess, I don’t....”

He trails off, because he has no idea what to say. They’ve talked about this, many times, but it always comes back down to the naked truth of the matter. That he doesn’t deserve this - her forgiveness, her fierce loyalty, her determination to have his back no matter what. That he has made choices, over and over again, that have hurt her. That he let those choices define them.

“You don’t what?” she asks, eyes wide, cheeks still flushed from her outburst. At any other time he’d find it hot as all hell, her springing to his defense like a lioness, teeth bared. But something about it ( _I_ _knew part of it was because of me_ ) just flicked him on the raw, split him open like the slice of a whip, and he doesn’t know how to hide it, can’t pretend that he’s okay.

“I don’t need you to defend me,” he says, and immediately he knows it’s a mistake. He can see it in the brief flash of her eyes as she looks down at her phone, the way her fingers tighten on the sheets.

“All right,” she says, low, and grits her teeth. _Fuck_ , but he didn’t mean it that way.

“I didn’t mean -” he starts, and she cuts him off.

“Yes, you did,” she says, still in that quiet voice, the one that says she’s holding it all in. “And you’re right, you don’t need me to defend you. It doesn’t mean I won’t do it anyway.”

_You shouldn’t defend me_ is what he wants to say. _I fucked up. I fucked_ us _up. For over a year, I fucked us up._

“It doesn’t matter,” is what he says instead, and it sounds sullen, even though he doesn’t mean for it to.

“How can you say that?” Her voice is clipped, tight in her throat.

“Because it doesn’t,” he snaps, and Jesus, he doesn’t need to lose his temper. Has absolutely no _right_ to lose his temper with her for loving him, for fighting on his behalf. But there’s a part of him that wants to go back to waking up, to squares of sunlight across his legs and Tessa’s hair spilling over his pillow...to not being reminded of Sochi and everything before and everything after, his litany of mistakes.

“Why can’t you just let it go?” he says, and she looks at him like he’s lost his mind.

“Because you asked, first of all, and second, because something is _clearly_ wrong. I said something that upset you, and - ”

“It wasn’t you!”

It explodes out of him, and she stiffens back against the headboard out of instinct. It makes something twist in his gut.

“It wasn’t you,” he repeats, quieter this time. “It’s just...I...it’s not all a lie, Tess, and you know it, and I know it. Or at least, it wasn’t a lie then. It’s not true now, but it was then, and I...I don’t want to think about it. Not now. Not today.”

She’s still staring at him in a combination of hurt and surprise, and it’s too much. His head has started pounding again, his stomach aches from being hungry and from the argument, and he wants to close his eyes and make it all go away, go back to sleep again. His eyes flit away, desperate to look somewhere else, to not see the disappointment on her face, and his gaze lands on the bottle of Ibuprofen sitting on the nightstand. Shit. She set that out for him, in case his head was still aching when he woke up, and if he felt guilty before, it’s now magnified by a factor of 1000.

“What do you mean, it wasn’t a lie then?” she says, still low and careful and too restrained, filtering her words through carefully constructed barriers.

He shrugs.

“I drank myself into oblivion for months on end, Tess,” he says. The words fall flat between them, land on the pristine white duvet with a leaden weight. “I screwed myself up, I screwed us up, and I know we’ve talked about it and said our apologies and done the therapy thing, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still regret it. I’m always gonna regret it. And yeah, I did what I needed to pull myself out, but that doesn’t change who I hurt in the process. Doesn’t change what I did to you and my family and - ”

He stops himself before he says _and to Kait_ because he really doesn’t want to bring that into the conversation. She looks at him, confusion and frustration in her eyes, and spreads her hands out, presses them into the mattress like she wants to shove _something_ out of her way.

“This is why I didn’t want you to see it,” she says. “That’s not...it’s not the truth anymore, it’s not _our_ truth, and I can’t stop them from saying it, but I shouldn’t have let you see it.”

He presses his lips together, bites down. Why the hell does she think she needs to protect him like this?

“I don’t need you to be my damn gatekeeper, Tess,” he says, irritated, and fuck all, if he isn’t being a supreme asshole today.

Her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

“I wasn’t aware I was being your _gatekeeper_ ,” she says sharply. He’s stepped off in it now, he knows, because her voice has taken on that frosty edge that can slice him open so cleanly he almost doesn’t feel the pain. She pauses for a moment, and his chest clenches in the silence.

“I realise you’re sick, Scott, and exhausted, but you do _not_ get to take that out on me,” she says firmly. “You’re right - I’m not your gatekeeper, and you can look at any comment on social media you damn well please, not that you’d think to in the first place. But I’m not going to apologise for being angry on your behalf, nor am I going to sit here and listen to you berate yourself for poor choices you made four years ago. We have _both_ made some spectacularly poor choices in our twenty-one years together, and at some point we have to accept and move past them, or this - ” she waves at the space between them “ - means absolutely nothing.”

He flinches at that, at the word _nothing_ flying out of her mouth.

“T, don’t say - ” he pleads, but she’s barrelling on, heedless.

“And I _know_ you feel guilty about that year, I know you do, and I don’t blame you for that because some days I do too. I feel like I said all the wrong things, like I didn’t listen to you and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the reason you went off the rails the way you did, and I didn’t know, didn’t _want_ to know, for a long, long time. But I’ve told you that, and I’ve dealt with that. We’ve gone to therapy, Scott, we’ve _dealt_ with this, and it can’t keep rearing its head over and over like this every time some asshole decides to comment on Instagram. At some point, Scott, you have to forgive yourself and let this go.”

She stops then, like she realises every word is burning him, raising blisters on unprotected skin, and he blinks at her, helpless.

“Tess...” he starts, and doesn’t know where to go from there, still. He’s been wrong-footed in this conversation from the start. “Tess, I don’t…”

He reaches for her, desperate suddenly for the comfort of contact, for her skin against his, but she pulls away, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

“I need a minute,” she says, and reaches with one hand to touch her chest. He recognizes the move from therapy sessions, a way of emphasizing that the request for distance is for her own well-being, not a way of pushing him away. It doesn’t matter.

“Tessa.” He rarely uses her full name like that, and in a fight like this, it carries heft with both of them. “Please. I…”

She shakes her head, her face cool and remote.

“I need a minute,” she repeats, and then she’s opening the sliding glass doors to the balcony and stepping out into the bright May sunshine, and he’s alone.

_Fuck it all_.

He pulls up his legs, wraps both arms around them, and buries his face in his knees, breathes in the unfamiliar smell of the hotel’s laundry detergent and a whiff of Tessa, that scent that’s woven into everything he owns to the point where it’s become the smell of home. There’s a sick throbbing behind his eyes, all the way through his sinuses where he’s still congested. His throat aches, partly from the head cold and partly from his adamant refusal to just let go and let himself cry the way he wants. He remembers as a little boy crying easily, especially when he got angry, remembers his mother’s hands on his back, stroking, when he’d break down in red-faced, furious tears over Charlie and Danny’s teasing. He’d learned quickly at school to let out his temper in other ways, that crying openly would get him nothing but hellish levels of mocking. Tess is one of the few people in the world who has never made him feel bad about it, who loves his overly-emotional self even when she probably ought to be embarrassed on his behalf.

But right now she’s sitting on the balcony, alone, and he’s stuck here remembering every stupid thing he just said to her and regretting them all, and behind everything there’s the black pit of Sochi pulling at the edges of his mind. He doesn’t want to go back there, doesn’t want to remember how bad it was. He doesn’t want to remember any of it - the drinking, the blackouts, the parties with people whose faces he can’t recall, the look on his mother’s face when he stumbled through her door drunk for the third time in a week.

He doesn’t want to remember feeling utterly unmoored.

He sighs, lifts his head and tilts it back against the headboard, looks at the ceiling as if it somehow has the key to obliterating everything he still regrets. Sochi had been hard enough, he thinks, without everything with him and Tess surrounding it, and he still to this day wishes he’d actually _listened_ to her about Marina. Wishes that he’d believed her when she said Marina wasn’t on their side anymore, that ten years’ worth of work and loyalty meant nothing to her in the end. He didn’t want to think it was true, and that blind trust had cost them, cost them dearly. Had cost _Tess_ dearly, and God, he wishes he could take that back, the knowledge that the silver around her neck was partly due to him.

But even so, even if he knows in his bones they deserved gold that night in Russia, it was all right when they got home, because despite everything he still had Tessa. There was a part of him, he remembers bitterly, that had actually been _happy_. They were done - the pressure of competition over, no more expectations, no further need to keep Skate Canada and Marina and the entire fucking country happy. They could just be _them_ , Tessa and Scott, and it was going to be perfect. They were going to be perfect.

And he thought they were. For a few blissful, idyllic months, he really thought they were. He looks back now and wonders sometimes if he’d been lying to himself from the get-go, if she’d been antsy from the beginning, but he doesn’t know and probably never will. At the time, he’d thought it was all fine, that they were together, on the same page even if they hadn’t actually discussed it _per se_ , but then again, when did they ever need words to read each other’s minds?

He put a down payment on a fixer-upper on the outskirts of Ilderton, started remodeling it with Charlie and his dad, FaceTimed Danny on the weekends to show him their progress. Tess came over off and on, and he rattled on about paint chips and floor plans and where the furniture would go. He doesn’t remember now what she said, or if she said much at all. Maybe he was excited enough for the both of them.

He does remember April, though, those last few weeks of April when she got quiet, too quiet. When she didn’t pick up his calls right away and forgot to answer his texts for hours, when he’d ring her doorbell and she’d look up at him when she answered the door like she was trapped there in her own foyer, her eyes darting, looking for a way out. When he started to feel something was wrong, the nagging persistence of it skittering down his spine like being haunted by a recalcitrant spectre. He remembers it building and building until the week before her birthday, remembers the silent dread of something he didn’t even understand underlying all the plans he’d made to take her out and celebrate.

And then the blow fell, one easy May afternoon in her living room four years ago, white furniture surrounding him and sunlight reflected off her hardwood floors. His world shattered around him, shards of broken glass digging into his skin wherever he turned, her voice ringing in his ears. _I...I can’t do this. I need to figure out who I am, me, Tessa. Not half of Virtue and Moir. Just...me._

He doesn’t remember much about that night. What little he does remember involves the basement of his house in Ilderton, a nail gun and a bottle or two of Jack and calling Chiddy at 2:00 AM., getting progressively drunker until, hours later, the figure coming down his basement steps wavered and split off into three separate Chiddys, all of them looking more than a little terrified.

The following months are still a blur.

He’d lost everything, or so he’d thought at the time, lost his career and the love of his life and his sense of purpose, everything that had shaped him, made him who he was. And so it made perfect sense to drink himself stupid night after night. To throw himself into a relationship with a woman he only vaguely knew, a woman who turned out to be kind and funny and remarkably patient with his bullshit, who deserved far more than he’d been able to give. To pick fights in bar parking lots, to dance with random girls with wandering hands and scare his parents to the point where more than once Charlie had picked him up and yelled at him in the crew cab of his truck, words that ran together in his brain but that all started with _what the hell_ and ended with _I know what this is about, you’ve got to let her go, Scotty. You’ve got to let her go._

But then he’d always been shit at that, hadn’t he?

Because of course, she hadn’t just disappeared. There were still interviews and charity dinners and speaking engagements. They still texted each other from time to time, met up for coffee and discussion of which tours they wanted to do when, because God knows it was nice to have the money, and he was never going to turn down an opportunity to skate with Tess. So they did Artistry on Ice in China that summer, went to Jeff’s wedding, did the Gold Medal Plates dinner that fall. She went back to school, working on her bachelor’s with her usual determination and single-mindedness, and he mostly focussed on cleaning up his act around her to the point where she seemed to legitimately believe every single lie he fed her about being happy and doing fine and enjoying retirement.

And over and over again, for fourteen months, they skated. Practicing for shows, performing, touring, and every single time they went out on the ice it simultaneously felt like coming alive again and bleeding out, the pain so vivid and intense that it woke him out of his stupor, shocked him back to himself. To this day, he thinks he’s never felt more himself than he does when skating with Tess.

So it went, getting blackout drunk on the weekends, desultorily working on the house when he felt like it, flying to Winnipeg to see Kaitlyn and stay for days on end, and then skating with Tess in order to breathe again. So it went until a night in Lausanne, where she was the one getting drunk for once, murmuring a broken confession in a dark hotel room, _miss you, I miss you so much_ , and for the first time in nearly a year, he felt his heart crack open with hope.

Things tumbled together quickly after that, so quickly it made his head spin. First, Mike Babcock taking him under his wing, sitting down with him one night over a couple of beers with the Leafs game on the TV in the corner of the bar, telling him _You can go after the thing you really want_ , and no one had ever told it to him quite like that before, no holds barred. No limits, nothing to win, just _go after it_ , and all he could really hear is _go after her_.

Second, either Cara or Charlie got fed up with his bullshit (he’s never been quite sure which), and called Tessa after one of his more spectacular benders in late March of 2015. She came to pick him up in her sensible SUV, eyes wide and horrified at the sight of him, and he came falling back to earth with a thud from the high of the alcohol and the dancing and the escape of it all. He’d never seen that look on her face before, the shock stark in the set of her lips, and suddenly he felt ashamed, so ashamed. Ashamed of wasting a year of his life, ashamed of being an ass to his family and his friends, ashamed of being the kind of man Tessa Virtue wouldn’t want to be seen with in public, much less love. He wallowed in it for three straight days, refused to leave the house or answer her calls, sat there on rock bottom and let the misery eat him whole.

On the fourth day, she found the key hidden under a loose board on his front porch and let herself in.

She hauled his ass out of bed, made him shower and get dressed and eat eggs and toast, sat on his counter with her ankles neatly crossed and watched him silently while he polished off breakfast. Then, she slid down, came over, and cupped his face in her hands.

“You can’t do this anymore,” she said simply, and he knew she was right. That he had to be done, had to stop the madness, or he was never going to come back.

“Okay,” he said, and only then did he see the tears in the corners of her eyes.

“I found a therapist,” she whispered, pushing a white-and-blue business card across the table with her finger. “Please, Scott. _Please_.”

And no matter how badly he’d bled for her, he would still do anything she asked when she said _please_ like that.

So he went to therapy. He stopped drinking, or at least stopped getting drunk. He tried to be a better boyfriend for Kaitlyn, which turned out surprisingly well. And Tessa checked up on him on a near-daily basis, which embarrassed the hell out of him at first until he finally realised that she wanted to be _friends_. Not the madly in love, testing the boundaries version of friends they’d been in Canton the past five years, but something closer to when they were children, falling asleep on their Marvin the Martian body pillow and holding hands tightly when they were afraid.

And then Gold Medal Plates in Scotland, which was eye-opening in a variety of ways, and the decision to come back. Breaking up with Kait, which was hard but he’d already lived through catastrophic, so he figured he could survive hard. Moving to Montreal, training under Marie-France and Patch. Falling in love with skating again, falling in love with Tessa (although he’d never really fallen out of love with her, doesn’t think he can). The last two years, which were better than he ever could’ve dreamed, winning gold and, more importantly, finding out that the woman he’s loved for nearly two-thirds of his life loves him too.

And now he’s here, sitting in a hotel room in Korea with a massive head cold, alone on their king-sized bed because he’s an idiot and snapped at Tessa for _defending_ him, for God’s sake. He feels like such a massive fucking idiot. He should’ve said _thank you_ and _I love you_ and _you’ve always had my back, even when I absolutely did not deserve it, time and time again._ And instead he’d, what, accused her of trying to keep things from him, after he’d pled with her to look at the damn post? Not only illogical, but utterly unfair. He wants to kick himself.

Slowly, he stands up, pinching the bridge of his nose to ease his aching head, and goes over to the sliding door. It’s only half closed, and when he slides it open a bit farther, she turns and looks at him, doesn’t say a word. He leans against the frame and looks back. She’s so damn beautiful in the sunlight, no makeup, still in her pajamas, and he knows he’s luckier than he ever deserved to be.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because it took him a long time to learn, but those two words can cover over a multitude of sins. She looks at him, green eyes wide, and nods.

“Come here,” she says, and scoots her feet over on the little iron ottoman with its cheerful lime-green cushion. He obeys, taking her feet in his lap from sheer force of habit and running his thumbs along the arches. She wiggles her toes and finally smiles at him. It’s a small smile, but it’s there.

“I was an ass, Tess,” he admits, cupping her ankles in both hands. “It...it’s hard, thinking about that. Remembering that. I hate it. But I had no right to be an ass about it.”

“You didn’t,” she agrees calmly. “But it’s all right -”

She stops and visibly self-corrects.

“It’s forgiven,” she says instead, and then leans down and tugs on his hand. “So come _here_.”

He grins, feels the flood of relief course through him as he scoops her up and settles back down in the chair with her draped comfortably over his lap. She sighs and tucks her head into his shoulder.

“I’m never going to stop defending you,” she says seriously, and even though he can’t see her face at this angle, he knows the look in her eyes, that stony look she gets when she means business. “You need to get used to it.”

“I know,” he says, and leans his cheek against her hair. “I’ve been used to it for twenty-one years, T.”

“Then why - ” she starts, and he turns his head to kiss her temple.

“Because I honestly feel like I don’t deserve it, not about this,” he says. She makes a soft noise, something between a sigh and a frustrated huff.

“I screwed up, T,” he says baldly. “I know I did. I scared my mother half to death, my brother had to come haul my ass out of half the bars in Ontario...and I hurt you.”

She pushes off his shoulder, leans up so she can make eye contact.

“We’ve talked about this,” she reminds him. “We hurt each other. We both screwed up that year, and before. We forgave each other for that. We still forgive each other.”

He takes a deep breath, then another, and she lifts her hand to his face, runs her thumb over his cheekbone.

“That’s the deal,” she says, very quietly and very fiercely. “That’s the promise. That we always forgive each other, no matter how badly we screw up. That we always have each other’s backs. I didn’t have your back that year, and I will always wish I had. But baby,” she kisses him quickly, just a swift brush of her lips to his, “all the regrets aren’t doing us any good. You know that.”

“You did have my back, though,” he argues, tilts his head just a little, hoping that she’ll take the hint and play with his hair. She just raises an eyebrow. “You did. You were the one who made me quit, sent me to the therapist. Charlie may have hauled my ass out of the actual bars, but you were the one who hauled me out of the headspace I was in, kept me from drinking myself to death. That was you.”

She shakes her head, presses her lips together. She looks pained.

“I just loved you,” she says simply. “I loved you, and I was scared for you. And it was partly my fault.”

“No, it wasn’t.” They’ve had this conversation before, they know how it goes, but in the course of twenty-one years, some conversations tend to get re-hashed. And this one is the kind that tends to bring out something new every time. Come to think, she’s never said it so bluntly before, that she thinks she was partly to blame for his year in the gutter. “Tess. It was not your fault.”

“But I said - ”

“You said what you felt you had to say.”

It took him a long time and a lot of work in therapy to come to this, to realize that in order for any of the rest of it to work - the comeback and actually getting together as a couple, gold in PyeongChang and the joint realization that they loved each other and weren’t ever going to stop - all of it stemmed from that one moment in 2014 when Tessa had the monumental courage to step back and demand her space. It hurt like hell, he can’t deny it, but that courage was what forced them to break and grow back together cleanly, like a bone that was finally set right. Now, four years later, he can see it, can be incredibly thankful she was brave enough to tell him no.

“Tessa,” he says, and now it’s his turn to take her face in his hands. It’s so small, really, her face, so delicate between his palms. That scares him sometimes. “You were so fucking brave that day. I didn’t see it then. But I do now.”

“I hate it when you hurt,” she whispers, and he can’t help it then, pulls her in to kiss her forehead, breathes her in. “I hate it when people post horrible comments about you. You’re my best friend, you know.”

“Same here,” he says, and she laughs softly. “You remember the hissy fit I threw about those blog posts, yeah?”

She smiles.

“It wasn’t that big a deal,” she says. “It was bound to happen sometime. People are always going to assume that I’m using you to get more money.”

He tamps down the flare of irritation, because God, what an abysmally _stupid_ thing to think, and focuses instead on the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles. She’s getting tiny crow’s feet now that she’s twenty-nine; she fusses about them, dabs on expensive eye cream in the mirror at night, but he loves them, loves seeing the proof of every single time he’s made her laugh.

“Baby,” he says solemnly, holding her gaze as if he’s about to say something deep and profound. “I hereby offer my body in service to your sponsorships. Aprons, arm-sniffing, you name it. I’m yours.”

She tilts her head back and laughs, that loud, full-bodied laugh that he’s loved since he was nine years old, and something inside him finally uncoils fully, lets him breathe.

“So…” she says, eyes alight with mischief, skimming her fingers along his collarbone as if she’s framing a picture in her mind, “you’d be fine helping out with the Starbucks posts, then? I can just see it: ‘Scott Moir, Olympic gold medallist, enjoying a café Americano on his morning off.’ And then you lounging in bed, sheets up to your waist, bare-chested, coffee cup in hand…”

She trails off and grins, looking extremely pleased with herself.

“Mmm,” she purrs, “you’d break the internet.” She bites her lip slyly, teasing, and he kisses her before she gets any other clever ideas.

“Whatever you want, T,” he murmurs when he lets her go. She’s adorably flushed, which makes his pulse pick up, and he notices with interest that she’s breathing a little hard.

“Nah,” she says, resting one hand on his chest. “I think I’ll keep you to myself.”

Well, _fuck_. She knows damn well he’s a sucker for her possessive side.

“You do that,” he mutters, and then he goes for broke, pulls her in for a kiss that absolutely means business, uses his teeth and tongue and hands to remind her that he’s hers, he’s always been hers, really, that he will belong to her body and soul until the day he dies. (Judging by the way she ends up straddling him, pressing her hips into his, her hands buried in his hair, he thinks she probably gets the point he’s trying to make.)

“Jesus, _Tess_ ,” he murmurs when she rolls her hips against him, slowly, and nips his earlobe. “Ah...you know that drives me…”

She does it again, and this time tugs at his hair while she kisses the side of his neck. Hell, if she keeps this up they’re going to get arrested for public indecency on a balcony in Korea, and then Stephane really is going to kill them.

“Tess,” he tries, which has the mixed result of her making an _mmm_ sort of noise against his skin and arching up into him. He tries to restrain himself, he really does, but when she gets in this kind of mood, it’s a little difficult. “ _Tessa_. We should probably...umm. Probably take this inside.”

She lifts her head and looks at him, her eyes dark and hazy and sea-green.

“Yeah, probably,” she agrees, and then she kisses him and he can’t think for two minutes straight.

He has both hands under her pajama top and is fumbling with the drawstring of her sleep shorts before she has the presence of mind to tug at his fingers and hiss _inside_. For half a second his addled brain interprets the command as something quite different before he remembers where they are and what he’s about to do in broad daylight and hoists her up, her legs tight around his hips.

“Hurry up,” she says, commanding, and he can’t help but grin. He loves it when she gets bossy in bed. It’s his Achilles heel, and she knows it.

“Yes, ma’am,” he drawls, and then she slides her nails into his hair and he doesn’t quite remember _how_ he makes it over the bed, only that she’s under him, wrapped around him, and everything’s a blur of heat and want and _Tessa_.

* * *

 

By the time they get out of the shower and she’s blow-drying her hair in front of mirror, it’s a quarter to two and he really thinks if he doesn’t eat something soon he’s going to fall over. He’s propped up on one elbow on the bed, watching her get ready and thinkingly longingly of bacon and eggs, or bibimbap, or anything really.

“You thinking brunch or actual lunch?” she asks as she unplugs the blow dryer and neatly wraps up the cord. He doesn’t particularly care - honestly, right now he’d eat one of Meagan’s disgusting vegetable granola bars if he had one. But he knows how much Tess loves breakfast foods of all varieties.

“Brunch,” he says, and sneezes.

“Bless you,” she says, automatically, and hands him a tissue from the box on the bathroom counter before returning to her foundation, which she is meticulously applying with one of the little sponges she keeps in her make-up kit. He honestly does not understand the need for foundation of any kind if they’re just going for breakfast, but if she wants to do her full routine, he’ll resign himself to near-starvation.

“Where do you want to go?” she says after she dabs on concealer under her eyes. He digs out his phone, pulls up one of his travel apps and types in _breakfast._

“The Flying Pan Blue has good reviews,” he suggests, and she turns around from applying eyeshadow, looking excited.

“Yuna said that one was good!” she exclaims. “I mean, it’s western food, but I kind of wanted French toast, really.”

He smirks.

“Yeah, I figured.”

She turns back to the mirror, humming under her breath as she messes with her eyeliner. He’s seen her put on makeup more times than he can count - hell, _he’s_ put on makeup more times than he can count - and he’s still sort of fascinated by the microscopic attention to detail she has when she’s getting ready. It’s so quintessentially Tessa.

After a minute, he gets occupied with reading through the restaurant’s menu that someone’s scanned and uploaded online, and doesn’t look up until she plops down beside him. He loops an arm around her waist automatically.

“You ready?” she says, and he nods with considerable enthusiasm.

“I’m starving,” he says, and launches himself off the bed. “Hurry before I fall over from lack of nutrition, I’m not sure how long I’ll last.”

She chuckles as she takes his hand and laces his fingers between hers.

“Judging from your performance in the shower, I think your stamina’s just fine,” she says, and he can’t help but laugh at her sass. “But I don’t want to risk it.”

She pulls the door to behind them and they head off down the hallway. As they stand waiting outside the elevators, he pulls her in, kisses the top of her head as her arms slip around his waist.

“Love you,” he murmurs, easily, the words that have hummed through his blood for nearly two decades of his life. He’s meant them in every way possible in that time, but never more so than he does now.

“Love you too,” she murmurs into his shoulder, and it doesn’t matter that only a couple of hours ago, they were fighting about the past.

This, what they have now...this is what matters.

* * *

 

The Flying Pan Blue is, in fact, as delicious as advertised. Scott can personally attest to the excellent of the salmon eggs Benedict, while Tessa has consumed more berry French toast than anyone would reasonably assume would be possible with a person her size. (Which he relishes, really, because after the Canton years he started watching Tessa like a hawk to make sure she was eating enough.)

He makes a trip to the washroom as she’s finishing up the last of her coffee, and when he gets back, he knows immediately that something’s up. Tessa has this _look_ \- a blend of guilt and defiant pride, and he knows full well that she’s done something. He just doesn’t know what.

“T?” he says when she refuses to make eye contact. “What’s up?”

She widens her eyes deliberately, and really, after twenty-one years you’d think the woman would know that she cannot pull off innocent worth a damn.

“Nothing’s up,” she says, too quickly. “Come on, let’s pay, we have to get back.”

He sits down slowly and raises one eyebrow.

“Uh-uh,” he says, and yep, there it is. There’s a flush rising in her cheeks. Guilty as sin.

“Tess-aa,” he says, drawing the syllables out. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” she says primly, but her eyes slide over to her phone like it’s a magnet. Right. He should’ve figured.

“What, did you post something?” he asks. She’s been getting progressively bolder with posting pictures of the two of them, and he fucking _loves_ it. Which, incidentally, is one of the primary reasons he never gets on Instagram, because he’d given her some ideas for captions one time and she’d promptly informed him that he would out the two of them on social media over her dead body. According to her, he has zero self-control online.

“No,” she says, but she still looks guilty. She’s not lying - she wouldn’t to him, anyway, and besides, Tessa can’t lie for shit. But she’s being cagey, which means she’s done _something_.

“Just show me.”

She gives him a stern look.

“There’s nothing to show.” She grabs the little black folder that contains the bill and reaches for her wallet. “Let’s pay and go back.”

His fingers land on her wrist and hold it, gently.

“ _Oh_ no you don’t,” he says. “You’re not paying for brunch to force me to drop it. Blatant manipulation, T. You might as well tell me, you know I’m not going to let this go.”

She stares him down, and yeah, she’s dug in her heels.

“There isn’t anything to tell, either,” she says, very unconvincingly. “I’m going to pay now, and you’re going to let me. It’s my turn.”

And with that, she snatches her wrist away, shoves back her chair, and swans off to the front counter.

He ponders for a moment, and then it occurs to him. He has a phone and ten fingers in working order. He can figure this out all on his lonesome. It takes him a minute to remember his security question for Twitter, and then all he has to do is search her mentions and it’s right there.

_\--Miss Tessa, being loud AF defending her hubby_ , and below it, there’s a picture of the comment she liked on Instagram.

He scans it, noting the reference to him mentoring kids around Canada, supporting young athletes, being an amazing role model, and something tightens in his throat. Tess knows _exactly_ how much attention she’s getting on social media these days. Sometimes, in fact, she likes things on purpose just to see what will happen. (He still remembers the day she liked a picture of white peonies from a bridal shop’s account and half her fans went batshit insane.) She’s deliberate about her online activity, careful to respond to fans with just the right blend of humour and sweetness. And she knew damn well how this would read, how people would interpret it.

She’s standing up for him. Subtly, without ever acknowledging the hateful commenter in the first place, but in her own way, she’s going to bat. For him.

He feels his eyes sting as he pushes up from his chair and goes to find her.

“Hey,” she says, holding out a hand for him. He holds out his phone in response, waits for her to look at the screen. Her eyes skim over it (she’s always been a fast reader), and then she bites her lip, looking a little nervous.

“I…” she starts, and doesn’t finish. She doesn’t seem sure what to say.

“Come with me,” he says, tucking his phone in his pocket and taking her hand. He pulls her outside, through the parking lot, until he finds a quiet little corner with a bench and a couple of low shrubs. It’s off the sidewalk and no one seems particularly interested in it, which is why he chooses this spot to pull her into his arms and bury his face in her hair.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and feels her relax against him.

“Yeah?” she says, as if she somehow doubted his reaction. He leans back a little, enough to look down into her face. She’s so tiny, even to him, so much fire in such a little frame.

“Yeah,” he says, trying to put words to the feeling flooding him. “Tess...I don’t…”

He wants to say _I don’t deserve it_ , but he knows that will only make her mad. And that is absolutely not what he wants right now.

“I don’t know what I did to get you,” is what he settles on, and she smiles at him, reaches up to loop her arms around his neck.

“Well, you showed up,” she says, very simply, and it takes his breath away. It bowls him over every single time, the depth of her loyalty to him. It sounds dramatic, maybe, but it’s kind of the same feeling he used to get as a little kid during Mass, sitting next his brothers in a row - that feeling of something beyond the ordinary, something special, something...sacred.

Thinking of Mass, he remembers a phrase at random, something about Adam and Eve that the priest used to say: _bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh_. It sounded a little crazy at the time, talking about people’s bones, but he thinks he gets it now, this sense of belonging to another person so completely that they’re closer than your own heartbeat. Knowing someone so deeply, so intimately, that they become a part of you, and you a part of them.

“Glad I did,” he says, and kisses her hair again because if he keeps looking in her eyes, he’s going to cry on a sidewalk in Seoul and that’s just embarrassing.

She laughs shakily against his shoulder.

“Yeah, me too,” she says, and he rocks her back and forth, closes his eyes, thinks of all the places they’ve been to get here and everywhere they’re going to go from here on out. It’s been worth it, every step.

“You ready?” he says, pulling away and holding out his hand, and she takes it easily.

“Yeah,” she says, and he has no doubt whatsoever that she means it in every sense of the word.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come yell at me over on Twitter at [@fairwinds_09](https://twitter.com/fairwinds_09) if you so desire. Or here. Wherever, really. 
> 
> Oh, and lest I forget...shoutout to my partners in crime, as always: [justtotallyplatonic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justtotallyplatonic/pseuds/justtotallyplatonic) and [fitslikeakey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitslikeakey/pseuds/fitslikeakey). And great thanks to [Miss_Six](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Six/pseuds/Miss_Six), who was kind enough to send me angsty playlists in order to facilitate the writing of the post-Sochi blues. Could not have done any of this without y'all. :)


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